In Painkiller, you will shoot a lot of dudes in the face.
Painkiller Review
Now here’s a game intended for the old-school crowd. This game doesn’t try to be anything it’s not, which is great because what it tries to be is an over the top, action packed shooter that doesn’t let up on the action from the minute you begin the game until the end.
In Painkiller you play as a man who is denied entrance to heaven until he eliminates Lucifer’s generals (yeah, you read that right) and must fight your way through levels filled with hundreds of undesirable demons. Now, it is important to note that this is the only thing you will be doing, there is nothing to Painkiller than shooting dudes in the face. However, it does it so well you don’t really need anything else. There are no puzzles, key hunts, pointless side quests, there’s just you at the beginning of the level and a few hundred demons in front of the end of the level.
The thing that keeps Painkiller from being a completely boring run and gun shooter are the weapons available. You get 5 weapons to choose from and each one has an alternate fire mode, here is where the unique and different combinations come from. I won’t spoil them but my personal favourite was the mini-gun/rocket launcher hybrid, which is perfect for gunning down hordes of demons and blowing their bodies into gooey bits. The one unique aspect of the gameplay is that when you defeat enemies they will release souls, collect enough of these and you’ll transform into a demon and have the ability to instantly reduce enemies into mulch.
One thing that deserves particular praise in Painkiller are the boss fights, very few FPS titles manage to do them well and the ones in Painkiller are very enjoyable to fight and add a pinch of variety to the journey. The overall presentation and sheer number of levels is also something that isn’t seen in modern titles of any kind. My first playthrough clocked in at over 14 hours, and this is done without padding out the game with crappy puzzles or anything of that nature.
Painkiller does have a couple of things holding it back from achieving all it sets out too. The enemy A.I. can get pretty annoying as you can only progress through certain areas once all enemies have been killed, their annoying tendency to get stuck behind things often results in searching them out by backtracking through the entire level. As varied and original as the weapons are it would have been nice to see a few more as you’ll acquire all 5 relatively early on in the game.
Ultimately Painkiller is a perfect example of a game where the developers made exactly what they wanted to make, an over the top non-stop action ride of shooting dudes in the face with extremely powerful weapons in a vast number of different environments. The games length and variety are definitely two of its strongest points and something that just isn’t found in modern releases. If you miss the days of the Doom era and all you want is a game that’s pure action with over the top weapons and great presentation, Painkiller is without a doubt the game you should be playing.
